Well Sharon seems like you got a little situation on your hands. Everyone thus far have given fairly good advice on the matter. I will just reiterate some of them with my view point twisted in.

1) You can pull her aside and tell her that you feel that she is not ready to test but she may test if she wishes. If you choose this path I suggest you get some guest instructors in to test the students and excuse yourself from grading this particular examination. In doing so she can not say that you failed her because you don't like her. The guest instructors failed her because she was not ready, end of story.

2) You can work her harder in hopes that she will quit. But I suggest you do not JUST work HER harder. You should make the classes harder in general. This way it will not seem that you are singling her out. From what you and Jagman have stated she seems to have a weak spirit. About 1 month of intense training should convince her to quit. If not she will get better and so will the other students.

3) Confront her about her purple belt lies, broken ankle fib, and her bad mouthing of everyone's favorite instructor ;D. Tell her that you do not appreciate being lied to. Adults are instructed at your dojo and it seems that she needs to mature a little more if she wishes to continue training under you. Ask her to come back when she is ready to keep her mouth shut and train hard. In doing so everything she achieves under you she has honestly earned with no excuses. If she chooses to depart, I would return all her money that she has spent at your dojo and cut your losses. You have better things to do than to babysit an overgrown toddler.

Thanks to everyone for the advice and to Jaggers for the (rather biassed [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]) support.

I always have guest instructors in to grade my students so she could not blame me if she failed on the day.

When I am deciding who to put forward for grading I hold a mock grading during the course of a normal lesson. I base my decision on this, their previous training and the way they conduct themselves in the dojo. It is after the mock grading that I tell them my decision.

I have decided to take a little advice from each of you.

Firstly, every time she mentions "regaining my purple belt" I will point out that:A) according to her association she was a yellow belt

B) It is irrelevant what she was or wasn't before. At her first assessment, done by guest instructors 5 months after she started training with me, with her wearing a white belt and the panel knowing she had trained before but with no clue to what level, assessed that she was orange belt standard. She has worked up from there and the only relevant thing is her standard now.

Secondly, I will make the lessons a little more intensive for everyone her grade and above to see how she copes.

Thirdly, I will assess her at her mock grading, give her my honest opinion and say it is up to her if she wants to test.

I will keep you posted, but my guess is she will either have another "injury" when the going gets tougher or she will leave because I say she is not ready and won't want to risk failing.

OR she will test, fail and leave.

Whichever way it goes, I will be suprised to see her in the dojo after Christmas.

I think the idea of having an "outside" person do the grading is an excellent one, especially if he/she knows little or nothing of the situation. Then no claim of "bias" can be made. We sometimes do that in my system, having an instructor from another school "sit in."

You won't believe what she has been up to now, I can hardly believe it myself.

She has (falsely) accused a 15 year old black belt of bullying her. She said that he punched her in the face (twice)so hard that she "had blood running down her throat and was coughing up blood for days" When asked why she said nothing at the time (this was nearly two weeks ago) she said she did not want to cause a fuss.

Knowing the sort of person she is she would have let everyone know at the time (she makes a fuss holding a bag, let alone if she is actually hit in sparring).

Nonetheless, I told her that I would speak to him (obviously with his parents because of his age) which I did. He was emphatic in his denial. I have never known him to lie and I believe him. I have to say that he is one of the most helpful students I have ever come across and certainly no bully. Whenever he spars with someone less capable I am always impressed by how helpful he is, which is why I choose him so often to spar with the lower grades.

She emailed me later (before I spoke to him, but I did not check it till later) to say that it may have been her inexperience that made her think he was "a little rough" and she would "rather forget about it"

Well, "a little rough" is so very different to her first version.

I have told her that this was the final straw and she is no longer welcome in my dojo. Upsetting me is one thing, upsetting one of my students with lies is quite another.